A good cry

This morning was a morning of monumental tears. One of those mornings when everything just built up and built up and built up and I finally had it. The source of my stress was our oldest son Logan who has been battling with a diagnoses of anxiety/ADD for the past few months and we're going through a whole gamut of things for him to help him and it's difficult to know how to parent him without losing it every second of the day!

The thing that has been getting to me lately is how he blames every single one of his problems on someone else and I'm trying to get him to take responsibility for his own actions which is a life lesson that I think is so important. If you know you've made a mistake, admit it, apologize, learn from it and move on. I know that's difficult at 8 years old, it's difficult at 33 years old, but it has to be learned. I had it this morning, I had enough of the bad attitude, talking down to his younger brother, and then blaming the whole fight on his younger brother and I yelled at him. I sent him to his room and I yelled at him about taking responsibility and knowing when it was his fault, etc. He talked back to me and told me that he wanted to run away and I told him that there were days that I wanted to run away from problems, but that is no way to solve them. By then I was in tears......an emotional sobbing mess and we were running late for school/work.

I know that we are doing what's best for him by going through the treatments we are for his anxiety/ADD - but I need to figure out how I can parent him the best without losing my cool. I do very well given the situation and I remain calm through a lot of things, but this morning I had one thing on top of another and another and I lost it. I know I should walk away, I know I should count to 10, etc., but the words came out and in that moment I felt like I needed to convey how blaming others was not the solution. Now for the remainder of the day I am left with the guilt that I yelled at my child before school, I upset him before he went to a place that he struggles with anyway.

Motherhood is difficult, parenting is not easy, I know how I felt as a child when I had a bad morning with my mom and I know that this will be one out of a million bad mornings I will have with Logan. I also know that I have friends who would give anything to have even my worst day with my child because their child has passed away and again, I feel guilty for even feeling guilty! So I had a good cry, on the way to work as I was putting my make-up on in the car AGAIN, I cried hoping that I would feel better. And 5 hours later, I still feel like crap about it.....I just realized that today is Friday the 13th, maybe this is just my dumb luck.

How do you handle walking back into your house after having a fight with your child or your spouse? If you are the parent of a child going through anxiety/ADD issues, how have you made changes to your parenting strategies?